What is more important to your business right now: more leads, or more top talent? It’s pretty hard to decide! If I were playing the long game, I’d want to hire more top talent: Boston Consulting Group reported that delivering on recruiting goals returned 3.5x revenue growth and a 2x increase in profit margin. Those aren’t numbers to sneeze at!
But leads are also the lifeblood of your business – cash is king, as they say. And it’s very likely that fans of your brand are also applying to work for your company. So how can you attract high-quality candidates while also gaining new, loyal customers in the process? A new wave of recruitment software called “Talent Acquisition Suites” are rapidly replacing legacy Applicant Tracking Systems by leveraging new, frustration free experiences for candidates in some pretty clever ways which will allow you to get new leads and top talent in the same breath:
1: An easy apply process.
Every interaction you have with your customers says something about your company. Delight should greet them at every interaction you have with them. So if they apply to your company with an obtuse, cumbersome apply experience, it’s going to sour their experience with your company.
Customers shouldn’t have to upload their resume, and then type in the details of their work history. Nor should they have to sign up for a user account just to apply. More user frustration equals less interest in your company and products.
Modern Talent Acquisition Suites allow for things like a one-click apply experience where your details are uploaded from places like LinkedIn, or automatic text recognition when a resume is uploaded. And now more than ever, candidates need to be able to apply from their mobile devices.
Creating a simple, delightful candidate experience will turn the candidates you passed over into continued loyal, delighted customers.
2: An attractive and easily updatable career website
For a lot of hiring organizations, obtaining resources, let alone IT resources is a tough thing to get. Recruiting teams and budgets are constantly constrained, so recruiters are conditioned to just focus on getting candidates into their pipeline.
If your career website isn’t as attractive as your main website, you’re sending mixed messages to your candidates and your customers. You’re dealing with two different brand experiences which lack brand consistency, and can diminish their experience. Leads CAN come in from your career website – a connection with your brand and the human employees behind that brand can create a sense of loyalty in your future customers. Therefore, your Applicant Tracking System should have a way for anyone to easily create a beautiful, mobile ready career site that doesn’t *require* IT resources. Not only will it attract candidates, but also prove that details are important to your company, and you honor both your customers and candidates.
3: A transparent, communicative apply process
Nothing is worse for a candidate than applying for a job, and feeling like their message has been sucked into a black hole of nothingness! The same can be said for a customer sending a message to customer service and support. Once again, every interaction with your candidates, customers, and leads can produce more prospects. So keep the communication up, and make it a delight.
Modern recruiting software not only makes messaging candidates easy, but also allows for auto-responses, a way to bulk respond to candidates, and (just like a support ticket portal) a candidate portal which allows candidates to check on the status of their application.
Transparency is key, and your candidates and customers will appreciate your honesty.
At the end of the day, Talent Acquisition Suites like SmartRecruiters should not only help you get higher quality candidates and customers, but also help turn those applicants into loyal brand supporters who not only use your product, but advocate on your behalf.
